Websites are not printed marketing materials. You cannot just launch them and walk away. Your website, regardless of when it was designed, needs to be incrementally improved over time. What is needed is a maintenance schedule to ensure the best user-experience you can!

Long time client, Mainsail Yacht Charters, is a great example of exactly how on-going maintenance cannot only give customer’s a better experience, but can increase business rapidly! Over the last few years, we have continued to work with Kevin to ensure his website has the most modern technology guaranteeing a better user experience. More specifically, over this past month, we have implemented a brand new integration with his booking agent – Central Yacht Agent. The integration we built not only ensures that yacht searches and yacht brochures are fully accessible from the site, but more importantly that they are all contained within the site with the same look and feel as the existing site! This is crucial to a successful online SEO marketing strategy. Linking people off your site does nothing to grow your SEO results – which is exactly why Mainsail had us undertake this custom integration.

The CYA integration features a custom built layout for brochure XML feeds and yacht search results. You can see it in action below:

In short, this is a win for both the customer and a win for Mainsail Yacht Charters. The customers get a fantastic search experience and Mainsail’s business is converting at a much better rate! Kevin reported that:

“January was a fantastic month. The best it has been a while! I am not sure if it is the new changes and integrations on the website, the ads you’ve been creating (more on this next week in part 2), or a combination of everything but what you’re doing is working very well! Keep up the great work!”

Interested in increasing traffic to your site? Time to modernize your site and deliver the right 1st impression? At Charternet Web Solutionswe deliver sites that offer easy navigation, making the redesigned websites both human and search engine friendly. We take pride in offering responsive design, a necessity for businesses to connect effectively to the smart phones and devices that are quickly replacing the desktop/laptop.Contact us today to get started!

And we are back with another customer feature for you! We had the privilege to work with Marine Diesel on updating their website last year. Our team has so enjoyed working with everyone at Marine Diesel, but when we asked them if we could feature their redesign in one of our customer spotlights, their response was amazing – let’s just say they had a “dark side” experience prior to having us “Jedis” join their team! In their own words, here is what Marine Diesel had to say about their redesign experience with Charternet Web Solutions:

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, we had a customer that wanted to exchange services. He ran a website hosting company and offered to get us on the internet with a ‘great website and launch our exposure into the stratospheric’! And with that, a deal was struck: we would work on his boat and he would create a website for our business.

The website that we received from him was not at all what we had expected. It was too dark, had no information, and graphically it was a disaster. To top it all off the contact page didn’t work and there was placeholder content everywhere – for a year! Getting in touch with him to fix these issue was next to impossible and if he did make some changes, he usually broke something else.

The worst part was that we felt embarrassed to send any customers to our website. As a result, we just kept it on the back burner – basically pretending that it didn’t exist. Occasionally, my boss asked me to change the graphics around and try to link some pages together, however I am not a web designer so it was still amateur status at best.

Prior to our redesign, the majority of our business comes from word of mouth. It is a small industry on a big coast and in the beginning, business would be local with a few exceptions of people out of state looking for hard to find parts. A lot of where we would spread our name was on boating forums and through Ebay sales. Many of our customers are world travelers and our name would get around that way. Our base of manufactures has also helped to get our name out there.

That all changed once we sat down and had a professional company look at our website. Charternet Web Solutions worked with us on getting a more user-friendly, refined, and informative website. How they explained everything and how they laid it all out for us, we knew right away this was going to be a worthwhile investment. Being able to work with a company that truly knew our industry and had the ability to give us what we needed played a large part in us deciding to go with Charternet Web Solutions!

Since our website redesign, we have been able to step our marketing and advertising up a notch without being embarrassed on where we are sending our potential clients or worry about marking the wrong first impression! Also, our new website gives us more exposure over the internet by allowing people to search for specific services or parts and have our website come up. It doesn’t look like a thrown together, placeholder site anymore. This gives our current customers a reliable avenue to contact us – where ever they are in the world! Plus, we have the added bonus of the manufactures that we are dealers for have a great site to add their name to. And we know they are happy to put their logo on our website and get the exposure they deserve!

Over all, our website redesign experience was painless and effortless. The team at Charternet Web Solutions is very professional, informative, and have a level of expertise that will give you the piece of mind that your website will be on the cutting edge of web design and innovation. Their knowledge about our industry, courtesy, attentiveness, and continued quick response have made us at Marine Diesel Services happy to be a part of the Charternet Web Solutions family.

Time to modernize your site and deliver the right 1st impression? At Charternet Web Solutionswe deliver sites that offer easy navigation, making the redesigned websites both human and search engine friendly. We take pride in offering responsive design, a necessity for businesses to connect effectively to the smart phones and devices that are quickly replacing the desktop/laptop.Contact us today to get started!

Here we are with our second customer feature this month – Bareboat Sailing Charters! Over the last 2 months, Charternet Web Solutions had the honor continuing our longtime partnership with Bareboat Sailing Charters with a website redesign to consolidate 5 websites (with identical content) down to a manageable, modern, user-friendly website that would convey what Bareboat Sailing Charters is all about. We recently sat down with Brian, owner of Bareboat Sailing Charters, to review his feedback and see what kind of impact to the business the redesign process has had!

Bareboat Sailing Charters specializes in chartering new and near-new Beneteau and Jeanneau sailboats ranging from 42 – 54 feet. They start your charter adventure in Newport, RI in the most famous harbor in America – Newport, Rhode Island. Also, they are the largest bareboat yacht charter company in New England!

Give us a little back story. What led you to want a redesign in the first place?

“I have been a longtime client of Charternet Web Solutions. They managed several variations of the same site for me on 5 different domains for a long time. With so many sites and places to edit, it took quite a few man hours to make sure everything was running the same on all sites – including a separate mobile site. I began to realize this last year that not only was it getting costly to make edits, but since my site was a bit dated, I was losing potential customers based on user experience as well. I decided I wanted to consolidate everything into one place with a modern, easy to navigate forum.”

In your opinion, what were the specific issues you wanted fixed with your redesign?

“My main issue was that I had a lot of content spread across a lot of domains (5 in total). The content on my site was hard to navigate and not conveying the message I wanted to give to my customers. I wanted to give my customers something that was clean, make it easy to find the information they needed, responsive so they could view it on the go, and just more user friendly.“

How did the redesign process go?

“The design process with the whole Charternet design team was amazing. Everyone I worked with from the initial design meeting to the launch and fine-tuning of the site at the end was amazing. The designer conveyed the look and feel I was going for while still being able to incorporate some important form customizations I had on my old site. It seemed from the very beginning we were all on the same page and the end result shows it.”

Was the redesign process worth it?

“The whole redesign process was a little daunting when I decided this was the route I needed to go. But I want to give many thanks for the great service the whole Charternet team has provided during the design process and after launch. And we really love the site too! It looks so good! We have been getting lots on compliments on it since launch and look forward to the ease of maintenance going forward! To sum it up – I’m very happy! With everything said and done, I am very pleased with how this whole design process went and even more happy continuing working with the whole Charternet team!”

Interested in increasing traffic to your site? Time to modernize your site and deliver the right 1st impression? At Charternet Web Solutionswe deliver sites that offer easy navigation, making the redesigned websites both human and search engine friendly. We take pride in offering responsive design, a necessity for businesses to connect effectively to the smart phones and devices that are quickly replacing the desktop/laptop.Contact us today to get started!

We are excited to highlight our next customer feature – Endless Summer Charters! Charternet Web Solutions had the honor of partnering with Endless Summer a few months ago to tackle 2 of their biggest hurdles: redesigning their dated website with a modern, customer-luring, responsive design and tackling their organic rankings with SEO management. We recently sat down with Angela to review her feedback and see what kind of impact to the business the redesign process and marketing management has had!

Endless Summer Charters will show you some of the best back bay and near shore fishing in SW Florida. Whether you are an avid fisherman or a family with kids, everyone at Endless Summer has the experience for both. Plus, they offer amazing eco-tours and sight-seeing tours! The whole crew at Endless Summer loves sharing their passion for fishing and the islands of SW Florida.

Give us a little back story. What led you to want a redesign in the first place?

“We started our website about nine years ago. The internet was pretty straight forward back then and starting, maintaining and optimizing the website for search engines was easy. The website produced for us but, we realized in the last year, it was at a point where keeping us at the top of search engines was beyond our comprehension.“

In your opinion, what were the specific issues you wanted fixed with your redesign?

“We noticed we started falling in the rankings. We suspected it was because we weren’t mobile friendly and really needed an updated look.“

Now that your new website is launched, what has your experience been?

“Charternet developed a website that flows easily while following my wishes perfectly. We’ve gotten great complements on the flow and ease of our website along with our booking and payment integration. We tried the DIY website but came to a point where we needed to focus on running charters and communicating with customers rather than attempt to stay up to speed with the constantly changing online marketing world – it was just beyond our capabilities. Our new website is fast and easy to make changes ourselves. Plus the Charternet team was so easy to work with and personable too. We made the right decision!”

From an analytics standpoint, we have seen an amazing change in traffic based on the redesign and active marketing management. We have increased an average of 20 spots in Google, Yahoo and Bing rankings since the re-launch in September and 30% of the key word rankings are brand new!

Seeing the growth in Endless Summer is amazing. They are growing a much broader audience since implementing SEO and delivering the adventure of a lifetime to their new customers! Take a look at a few of their reviews:

“

Thanks Captain Bill Hammond and Matt for being our entire family's go to for amazing fishing for 7 years now! It's safe to say the whole extended family, generation after generation loves you guys and every year we look forward to the adventures you bring us! Thanks for the memories!!! This is only a glimpse!!

Amanda S.

“

My husband, daughter and I had a great day fishing with Captain Bill. We caught many different fish... including a baby grouper and a stingray. Captain Bill moved us around during the day to help us find fish and was extremely knowledgeable about the entire area. We didn't take home any keepers but we all had a wonderful day together on the water. Can't ask for much more!.

Shana R.

“

The weather And tides were a challenge. With that said, the trip was one of the best charters I've booked! Bill Was a great guide and managed to , despite the poor conditions, get my dad his first snook. We all had a great time and WILL book out next charter with Endless Summer.

R.M. Tyre

A huge thank you to Angela and the whole crew at Endless Summer for taking the time to sit down with us and giving us your honest opinion of their experience with the Charternet team!

Interested in increasing traffic to your site? Time to modernize your site and deliver the right 1st impression? At Charternet Web Solutionswe deliver sites that offer easy navigation, making the redesigned websites both human and search engine friendly. We take pride in offering responsive design, a necessity for businesses to connect effectively to the smart phones and devices that are quickly replacing the desktop/laptop.Contact us today to get started!

We have talked a fewtimes on how most search engines, with Google spearheading the change, are dinging your rankings if you are not offering the most user, mobile and search engine friendly website you can. And now Google is adding another level to their quest and getting tough on websites that are not encrypted.

For those of you who don’t know, an encrypted website is a website that uses a secure connection to access the site and a session key is used to encrypt all transmitted data. Your browser connects to a web server or website secured with an SSL certificate (indicated with https versus http before the domain name). Website that do not use encryption or SSL allows easier access for outsiders to capture potentially secure information, including important user names and passwords.

So you might be wondering how this will effect you. Well, it’s simple: Google Chrome will put a BIG red flag warning to inform internet users that your site has certain unsecured webpages that feature entry fields for sensitive data, such as passwords and credit card numbers. A note of warning will mark any webpages asking for sensitive data that are powered by HTTP—a standard data transmission protocol—rather than HTTPS—and in the address bar, your customers will notice a new prefix: “Non secure.”

Unlike before, HTTPS pages will now have an actual boost in search results and will be shown to users by default. What this mean is you need to ensure you’ve implemented SSL/HTTPS security certificates properly to provide the best possible experience for visitors and retain your existing search positions.

If you require your customers to give personal information or credit card info to book or buy anything on your marine business website, the Charternet team is here to make the transition as smooth as possible for you. We have been dealing with website encryption and SSL security measures for the marine industry from the very beginning! We can get your SSL certificate bought, installed, and updated yearly so you don’t have to worry about that red flag warning. Our experience with fishing charters, yacht brokers and water adventure companies combined with good data and knowledge means your marine business can continue doing what you do best and ensure all of your customers information is secure!

When it comes to online marketing, there are a lot of avenues to choose from and combine. You have social media marketing, pay-per-click marketing, email marketing. But the most popular is Search Engine Optimization or SEO. We have talked a lot (here, here and here) on how important SEO is to your marine business, but the BIGGEST question we get is, “When will I start seeing results!?” The short answer – SEO is a slow burn. It takes time to build rankings, especially if you are in a competitive market.

What a frustrating answer, right? But it’s the truth. Now for the long answer. How fast your SEO results start to meet your goals depends on a variety of factors including how long your site has been around, how competitive you market is, how and when your website was built (you can read more on that here), if you are adding fresh content to your site on a regular basis, and a whole slew of other factors. Truth is, every marine business starts from a different starting point. If your site hasn’t been redesigned in 5 or more year or isn’t mobile friendly or responsive, you are starting far behind your competitor that just redesigned their site, write blog posts or fishing reports weekly or monthly, and is reaching people on social media.

With all that said, most marine businesses will see SEO results in about 6 months. See what we mean by slow burn? Below is a rough agenda of the results you can see when starting with our SEO marketing experts:

First Month – The marketing team at Charternet Web Solutions has been exclusively doing SEO for the marine industry for almost 20 years. Because of that, we have extensive knowledge of the the terms, key words and market your business needs to rank better in. We use this time to research your given area, do a website audit and form a keyword strategy.Second & Third Month – Our marketing experts begin the behind the scenes technical stuff – optimizing your site based on the audit findings, getting you set up on your social media accounts so you can post regularly, help you build content, etc. We should note that this is the point where you will find out if you need to enter into a website redesign based on the audit results. The goal would be to make your website appealing to search engines, and Google in particular, has high standards. You will start building site content! Blogging, fishing reports, FAQs, company information, etc. The sooner you get a jump on this, the better off you will be!Fourth Month – Continued content creation, technical optimization of the website, and development of a healthy link profile (which may include cleaning up low quality links). It is safe to say that if you have been adding quality content, keeping up with your fishing reports, posting blogs to social media, you could expect to see a marked increase in rankings, traffic, and lead generation. It won’t be anywhere close to the improvements you should see 12 months into your SEO efforts, but it should be significant enough that you know SEO is working.Fifth & Sixth Month – By this month, you would have heard from us that social media and natural link building is crucial to your rankings. This can lead to a healthy, natural link profile, and of course generate leads in and of itself. Your marine website should be seeing more and more traffic coming in from SEO at this point, and your leads should be growing as a result. Going forward from here it will be tremendously important to keep up with your weekly activities of content creation, social media postings, etc!

Keep in mind that this is just a general outline. Many factors can reduce or increase this timeline.

Ready to expand your customer base with effective SEO marketing? With over 2 decades of marine industry experience, at Charternet Web Solutions we deliver powerful SEO management plans to fit your budget. Our experience with fishing charters, yacht brokers and water adventure companies combined with good data and knowledge means your marine business will rank on page 1 and your phone will ring off the hook!

It’s no doubt that we live in an ever-on-the-go, mobile society. It’s why you’ve seen a major shift in the online market to make searching, booking, and buying on the go much more user friendly. In fact, Google now demands that you offer a well-rounded mobile experience by dinging you in your rankings if you are lacking the that area.

But because of this universal shift to the mobile offering, it leaves a huge question: what is the difference between responsive design and mobile design. We offer both options here at Charternet Web Solutions, so we thought it would be fair to lay it out in a comparison for you! Here are the main differences between the two:

In the end, you can see that mobile design can be restrictive, limiting, and become outdated much more quickly than a response design from the start. Because mobile websites usually provide visitors with the bare basics the site has to offer, they won’t get to see your site in all its glory or be able to use it to its full potential. However, it is a relatively inexpensive option if you are getting dinged by search engines and need that mobile-friendly option.

On the other hand, responsive design is extremely flexible. It allows websites to resize and reflow their layout based on the visitor’s screen size and gives them a consistent experience. From large-screen, high-resolution monitors all the way to the smallest smartphone touch screens, it’s important to have an experience that is suited to each of those individual devices. Responsive websites will simply adapt to their environment while maintaining the same stunning images, typefaces and navigational properties. Plus, with our monthly payment plans, this option is super budget friendly!

Interested updating your site to suit this on-the-go market we live in? We at Charternet Web Solutionsdeliver sites that offer easy navigation, making the redesigned websites both human and search engine friendly. We take pride in offering responsive design, a necessity for businesses to connect effectively to the smart phones and devices that are quickly replacing the desktop/laptop.Contact us today to get started!

The kids are back in school and families are back to the daily grind. This is the time for you to analyze what worked and didn’t work. Was your website helping generate leads? Did it hook people in to book reservations? Here are 3 facts about your website that might put that into perspective:

A two-year-old website may be too old! With how often the web changes, an outdated website runs the risk of not displaying properly in the web browser, having unexpected formatting issues, or not showing up effectively in search engine results. For this reason, a site that is even two years old may be antiquated if it has not kept pace with these changes.

A good website design ranges between $1200 – $5000. If you’re surprised at this range, we completely get it. But think about the number of man hours and collective brainpower that goes into optimizing websites for search engines, making content accessible across browsers – including mobile devices like cellphones and tablets, and improving overall performance by speeding up your website’s loading times.

There’s a big difference between responsive and mobile web design. We talk about the subject a lot and for good reason. These are two very different approaches to shifting screen sizes for different devices. In the simplest terms, mobile design is restrictive. It serves up a separate, and often limited, version of your website that can be used on smartphones and tablets. However, because mobile websites generally provide visitors with the bare basics that the site has to offer, they won’t get to see the full glory of your web design or use it to its full potential. Responsive design is extremely flexible (what Charternet specializes in), allowing websites to resize and reflow their layout based on the visitor’s screen size. This gives visitors a consistent experience from large-screen, high-resolution monitors all the way to the smallest smartphone touchscreens, while also having an experience that is suited to each of those individual devices. Responsive websites will simply adapt to their environment, while maintaining the same stunning images, typefaces, and navigational options – and you don’t have to maintain 2 websites!

The ins and outs of website design are in fact mind-boggling, and a high level of updated awareness and attention to detail to create the best website possible is a necessity. Keep these facts in mind as you look to growing your web presence in preparation for next season! Interested in having your site capture what your business is all about and everything you have to offer? We at Charternet Web Solutionsdeliver sites that offer easy navigation, making the redesigned websites both human and search engine friendly. We take pride in offering responsive design, a necessity for businesses to connect effectively to the smart phones and devices that are quickly replacing the desktop/laptop. Contact us today to get started!

As much as we hate to say it, we all make decisions and judgements based on first impressions. And for your charter business, your logo is the first thing on your website, business card, or marketing materials that potential customers are going to see. They will make quick judgments about whether or not to do business with you based partly on how professional you appear to them at first glance. Potential customers move on (quickly) and do book their charter, yacht or fishing trip with someone else if you don’t appeal to them straight out of the gate, no matter how amazing your on-the-water experience is.

On top of being your first impression, you logo can also have a lasting impact on your company. Here are the top 3 reasons why have a professionally designed logo is crucial to the success of your marine business:

Your logo tells customers who you are. The marine industry is a very competitive one and having a logo that quickly conveys who you are and why you are different goes a long way in reeling in a potential customer to dig deeper into your company. Your logo should emphasize why you are better than the guy in the slip next to you.

Your logo helps people to remember you. We live in a very visual society. When potential customers are scrolling through pages and pages of charters on Facebook looking for the best one, an eye-catching logo will hook them in and make it easier for them to remember you. When people remember your logo, you get a leg up on the competition.

Your logo enables attracting new customers. Professional logo that is easy to remember can be the deciding factor when people decide to book with you. If it comes down to the you and another charter and your showing a more professional, accurate portrayal of what your customers will get when they book with you – you are going to win that customer hook, line and sinker!

GIVEAWAY TIME!

We talk a lot about how important your website and logo is to the success of your business, so we are going to put our money where our mouth is!

Charternet is giving away a FREE logo redesign when you sign a contract for a Captains or Admiral Website redesign contract!That is a $300 value!

It is more common than you think for marine business to neglect their websites just dealing with the day-to-day activity of being on the dock, in the boat and generating new customers. The reality is that it is not enough to have random, out-dated information and a few contact phone numbers on a website in hopes that perspective customers might find you. In today’s web-driven world, to stay ahead of your competition you need to pull your customers in with an interesting, engaging website design and fresh, relevant content. This will not only reel in the first-time customers, but also make them repeat clients who refer you to their friends and family. So, to make life easier, we laid out 3 reasons on when you should or should not consider redesigning your website:

The internet changed before you did.
So you missed that responsive web design thing (HOW? We talked about it so verymuch!), thinking it was soon to fade away like most trends these days. Change happens, and most times, very quickly. We all make mistakes and a redesign is a great opportunity to improve much more than just the visual appeal of your site. The icing on the cake – Google’s search engine ranking algorithm rewards mobile friendly websites and soon loading speeds for mobile pages will influence your rankings as well. So take a look at your website on your phone: does it stack, font scale to the appropriate size, does the navigation menu condense, etc etc? If not, it’s time to redesign.

You haven’t updated your content in, well, forever.
Hey. Life happens. You get busy being on the boat, engaging with people on the docks in the hopes of getting bookings, and the next thing you know a few years have passed. Suddenly your website is not a reflection of the business you have cultivated and doesn’t portray the on-the-water experience you are giving your customers. Even worse, it’s not mobile friendly! Then you realize you haven’t been getting your fishing reports up, or having your customers leave reviews, or is missing a place where your clients can book with you. Now what?! It’s time to redesign.But lets say you do all of these things, and your sure your website is mobile-friendly, but you are more impressed by the website the guy in the slip next to you just launched. Instead of feeling forced into a redesign to keep up with the Jones’, take a step back and a deeper look into what made him redesign to ensure you address your problem areas with a redesign (images, online booking calendar, customer reviews, social media integration).

You aren’t getting the results you want.If the first two reasons didn’t peek your interest, but you are still sitting on the docks watching potential customers book with the other guy, then your website is not doing what it is supposed to do – getting you customers. Your website exists to build your customer base, and your analytics should show you’re moving toward that goal. If you aren’t happy with your bookings right now, it’s time to redesign. Do your landing pages inspire people to learn more about your on-the-water experience? Is your site too text-heavy or littered with type-o’s, old clipart images, or errors? Does your site’s look and feel match your charter’s voice and speak directly to your target audience? If not, it’s time to redesign.

If you answered YES to any of these reasons, contact us today! Our team will give you a free, no obligation audit of your site, see where you need the most improvement, and build a strategy with you. Together we can transform your website and lure in those potential customers!